Hanging on the Laurels of Yesterday
by Meixia
Summary: Clark runs away from the future and discovers a certain exception (someone) to the fated human lifespan. Pre-slash, minor Clark/Lex hints.


Hanging On the Laurels of Yesterday  
  
Five hundred miles and he still wasn't far enough, the bright image of a solitary star in the form of a yellow sun burning bright in his mind's eye and above him. Ran until his legs should have started hurting, but what if they never did? He'd run until all the grass was trodden and dead, the world a million years older while he remained unchanged. The sun would still be there, every day, and Clark would never tire.  
  
He could keep running from time, from the inevitable and human shaking in Martha's hands and the weak complaints from Jonathan about his pain- stricken back. Brittle, Clark remembered, reminded himself - they were all brittle and their bones breakable. He knew in his heart that although he might not see them age, it did not mean that they were not aging.  
  
He could steer clear of Lex's sharp smiles that would only grow sharper as the years passed, hardening him into someone else, and he could overlook Lana's tired eyes and the fated wrinkles around them branching out like spider-webs that would try to cover her once youthful face.  
  
Ignore Chloe's once adamant beliefs that earned her the job at the Inquisitor as they would turn into impotent and wavering half-truths spoken by a whispery voice, so close to flitting away with the wind. Pete would win state elections for different positions on the political totem pole, but Clark would not be there to see him go on a balmy Saturday night. Alone despite his lifelong good fortune, Pete would clutch tightly to the pillowcase because it couldn't be that death was seizing his throat with icy hands so soon, it just couldn't.  
  
Clark kept running. Places passed him by that he had no wish to see, until finally he arrived at a distant shore somewhere where he stood with his bare feet buried in the sand, gazing out into the endless ocean. Time was like this, Clark thought, as the aquamarine waves grew darker and darker the further away they were. Time would stretch on into oblivion until you could no longer see it in the distance, just like you were not be able to predict the future.  
  
The sky was cerulean, but great, rolling thunderclouds threatened to ruin the halcyon weather as they came slowly in from the north, blown by a summer breeze. Clark could hear a distant roll of thunder, and for a moment, the sky reminded him of Lex's eyes, bright and blue but with an unforeseen storm looming behind them, waiting to erupt at the opportune moment. Clark watched and waited for the storm to pass before he moved on, grains of rough sand still between his toes.  
  
Running helped clear his head. It also helped him think, which he did not want to do. At the moment, he just wanted to run away from it all. From the future that appeared imposingly in the front of his mind after a particularly disturbing dream and after remembering the haunting images Cassandra had once delivered.  
  
Reflections that were dug up straight from the grave. Fresh, in his mind, pushing him further away and propelling his feet to run, to escape. He could go as far as he wanted to, and stop. He could make a new life in the old-fashioned and spicy streets of Morocco - he would survive. He could hitch up in Africa and help hungry children win the war over poverty. He could do a lot of things that would distance him from his friends and all that came with Smallville.  
  
And Lex.Lex would just be a distant memory, stagnant like the aging water that sat in the sewers of old-town Paris, places like Montmartre where famous artists once bartered over a loaf of Parisian bread. Clark stood still then as he breathed in the smells of French coffee and hand kneaded, freshly baked bread.  
  
Except, there was something wrong with the thought of Lex disappearing like everyone else; the light of his life snuffed out like the flame of a candle by the smallest of fingers, or even Clark's own. Clark was not certain why, but he could not picture Lex without ambition and spirit as a lifeless vessel; to be able to imagine that would be synonymous with Clark becoming Earth's next archenemy.  
  
Clark knew in certainty that he would not be able to let go of Lex, even after death. With the sobering thought, Clark began running again, never stopping long enough to give himself time to think it completely through, because he couldn't. He had enough hope not to; at least enough to give Lex a chance to prove Clark wrong, that Lex would not die, not while Clark was still alive.  
  
Bound, inextricably. In the midst of everything else plaguing him, the thought was especially comforting.  
  
Mom, Dad, Lana, Chloe, Pete. And then there was Lex, in his own category. Rare like the green meteor-rocks and as hazardous, too. But the difference - the difference was that Lex was something loved. Someone that Clark loved perhaps more than family, even if he could not say it aloud because no one could possibly begin to understand the meaning behind that, not even Lex himself.  
  
He could run from all those things, but he could not run from Lex and the slowly dying light of his eyes. Human, in all the ways that mattered. In all the ways that Clark wasn't. His heart was tethered to Lex's life, and if that gave out, then Clark had nowhere left to run to. He was sure of it.  
  
The bright sun winked down at him as Clark looked up, the world a continuing blur around him as he ran. Three times around the world, past Egypt and Ibiza and sunny California, before Clark returned to Smallville.  
  
Maybe.maybe life didn't have to equal death. There were all those years in between, the blank pages that had yet to be filled. Lex was still alive and breathing. Fencing and warring with his father with legally binding contracts and stocks and shares, he was still a part of Clark's current life and far from the future. If Clark weren't deliberately watching for it, perhaps it wouldn't come to pass. The future was only as good as he made it to be.  
  
He trekked dirt, mud, and tufts of grass onto lush and immaculate Indian rugs as he entered Lex's mansion, slipping through the door as if he belonged there. And he did. 


End file.
